


a long time ago

by saltstreets



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 20:36:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5512343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets/pseuds/saltstreets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>scenes from childhood</p>
            </blockquote>





	a long time ago

 

1.

The AT-AT is good real estate. _Great_ real estate, actually.

She’s old enough to live on her own now, out from under the thumb of the junkers. Or at least, out from under the immediate thumb. She still has to rely on them for food and supplies of course, and she still has to go out each day at their bidding, to tug rusted parts and oil-clogged pieces out from the rotting hulks that litter the surface of Jakku. But at least she has a place to call her own.

It’s spacious for the type of life she leads: she can hang her hammock and set out her things on a shelf fashioned from some of the plating that was slowly dropping off the AT-AT’s outer shell and lay her table, all in the cool dark bunker in the gutted machine. It wasn’t bad, for Jakku.

And so she wakes each morning and gets ready on her own time, without someone barking in her ear to hurry up as she bundles her hair into the usual three buns, just like she remembers to do. Just like she remembers to do so that when they come back, when her family comes back, they’ll recognise her and she can leave this sun-cracked planet behind.

 

 

 

2.

“Pffeww! Pfew pfew! Nnnneeeeerrrrrr...a close turn, he’s going to be hit, no wait, he’s, heeee’s off! Outflies the TIEs, our heeeero’s awaayyy!”

“Not so fast- neerr, neerr, zZING! Here’s reinforcements! Pow! You’re hit! Hey, you’re hit! C’mon, go down!”

“Never! Poe Dameron is never hit! I’m the best pilot in the Rebel Alliance!”

“Aww, c’mon Poe, I _totally_ got you. Just go down. It’s my turn to be the Rebels anyway. You gotta be the Empire now.”

“Okay, okay...”

 

 

 

3.

He overhears one of the communications officers talking about home.

“Yeah,” the man is saying, “I got a kid at home. She just turned two. Cutest thing you ever saw.”

 

He asks one of his bunkmates, FO-004, about it later.

“What’s home?”

FO-0044 blinks. “Home? Home is here.”

But that’s not right. That’s not what the comm officer had been talking about, he’s sure of it. “No, I mean, what’s a home that isn’t here?”

He gets nothing but a shrug. “There is no home that isn’t here.”

In a way, FO-0044 is right. The training base is the only thing he’s ever known. It’s the only thing any of them have ever known, all of the troops for years now, growing up side-by-side. The compound where they eat and sleep and train is everything.

The comm officer must have been talking about the base, it’s the only explanation. There’s nothing but here. He thinks he’s only about ten but he already knows enough to understand.There’s nothing but here.

 

He can’t shake the feeling though, and whenever he sees that comm officer he thinks about the way his voice had sounded. Soft, faraway. Like there was something out there beyond the base, somewhere to call home.

**Author's Note:**

> I've now seen TFA twice and I really really really need to write about a billion fics so please accept this meagre offering while I rewatch everything, brush up on my Star Wars trivia, and try to roll out something much bigger and better :D
> 
>  
> 
> for now I have no idea what storm trooper childhoods might have been like so I just sorta made stuff up? George Lucas/JJ Abrams/any EU writers feel free to contact me with corrections


End file.
